6. Order of Adjectives

It happens often that two adjectives or even several adjectives are used to describe a noun. With more than one adjective in a row, there is a specific order for this group of adjectives to follow.

The following shows categories of adjectives in the correct order in which they are used to describe a noun.

Determiner – We normally begin a sentence of this nature with a determiner. The determiner can be an article (a, an, the), a demonstrative adjective (this, that, these, those), a possessive adjective (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) or an amount.

Qualifier/purpose – It can be a noun (garden tool) or verb (used car) acting as an adjective.

(*Sometimes, age comes after shape.)

Coordinate adjectives

Coordinate adjectives are adjectives that are equally important in describing a noun, without one of them outranking the others, and they are separated by commas.

To know if the adjectives used in a sentence are coordinate so that a comma is used between them, reverse the order of the adjectives or use the word and to separate the two adjectives. If they make sense, they are coordinate and a comma is required.

Example:

He is a highly qualified, experienced doctor.

He is an experienced, highly qualified doctor.

He is a highly qualified and experienced doctor.

(All of them make sense, which means both adjectives are of equal importance [coordinate] and a comma is used.)

Example:

No commas and no 'and'

No commas or conjunction and is required if adjectives come before nouns or pronouns or to separate non-coordinate adjectives that belong to different categories of adjectives. The adjectives are shown in bold.

If you came face-to-face with an ugly toothless old witch, what would you do?

(Not: If you came face-to-face with an ugly toothless and old witch, what would you do?)

This beautiful large 10-year-old red-coloured Russian-designed wooden summer house is for sale.

(Summer is a noun acting as an adjective modifying the noun house.)

She inherited that light yellowish-brown wicker cat basket from her grandmother, who used to keep a playful small black cat.

(Wicker and cat are nouns acting as modifying adjectives.)

Jill is a good-looking, well-dressed, unattached, tall, middle-aged Australian businesswoman.

Hong Kong is a busy, lively, exciting city with imposing, high-rise buildings.

Three or more coordinate adjectives

Use commas and the word and before the last adjective if two or more adjectives come after the noun or pronoun, or when there are three or more coordinate adjectives, separate the adjectives with commas and the last two adjectives with the word and.

I wish tomorrow’s morning would dawn bright and sunny.

She is intelligent, hardworking and successful..

The cap that she bought has colours of yellow, brown and red.

The birthday cakes on sale at the bakery come in different shapes: round, square and triangular.

Example:

Coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives

Coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives may exist in a single sentence.

The items he bought included a reasonably-priced, imported glass wine jug.

(Reasonably-priced and imported are coordinate adjectives as they can exchange places, and the word and can replace the comma. The other two adjectives glass and wine are non-coordinate because and cannot be placed between them or between imported and glass.)

Examples:

If adjectives in a sentence come after the verb be (is, are, etc.), the qualifier adjective (an adjective that qualifies the meaning of a noun and is accepted as part of the noun) will accompany the noun at the beginning of the sentence. The qualifier adjective does not need to be an adjective: summer, for example, in the following example sentences. More examples: garden gate, sandwich box, kitchen table, fish farm (all the words in bold are not adjectives; they are nouns but act as adjectives).

Correct

: This summer house is beautiful, small, 10-year-old, red-coloured, Russian designed and wooden.

Incorrect

: This house is beautiful, small, 10-year-old, red-coloured, Russian designed and wooden and summer.